LONDON: Britain made a second airdrop of aid to refugees in northern Iraq, officials said on Tuesday, as reports said that Tornado fighter jets had left Britain to provide surveillance support for the humanitarian effort.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) was forced to abandon a drop on Monday because of fears of injuring people on the ground, but a repeat attempt overnight was successful, the Department for International Development said.
Two aid drops have now been made, delivering 4,380 water containers and 1,056 solar lamps that can also be used to charge mobile phones.
Britain is also sending a "small number" of Tornado jets to gather information to help deliver aid to civilians fleeing Islamic State (IS) militants, Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street office said.
"We have decided to pre-position a small number of Tornados in the region so that they could, if required, use their excellent surveillance capability to gather better situational awareness to help with humanitarian effort," a spokeswoman said.
"This would be similar to the role the Tornado played in the UK earlier this year, gathering information on the areas affected by the severe floods."
According to a report by the BBC, three jets left RAF Marham in south east England at 2.00 pm (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, bound for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
Akrotiri is expected to be used as a base for the mission, but the Ministry of Defence would not say how many jets would be involved.
Ministers have repeatedly said they have no plans to join the United States in conducting military strikes on IS forces, but for some, the prospect of sending in jets raises the stakes.
The Times newspaper reported the move to send Tornadoes under a front page headline "Jets ready for combat", and cited anonymous defence sources stating that the mission could "quickly evolve into a wider combat role".
A number of retired generals have been calling for tougher British action, including General Richard Shirreff, who was Britain's most senior officer in NATO until March and resigned from the army last week.
Shirreff told The Times that the government was "terrified" of deploying troops ahead of the general election in May, but warned: "The longer we sit on our hands and prevaricate, the more dangerous the situation is going to become."
Any decision to take military action in Iraq, three years after British forces pulled out following an eight-year occupation with the United States, would likely require a vote in the House of Commons.
Parliament is on summer recess until September 1 and several MPs are urging a recall. However, the government has said it has no plans to do so at the moment.
The last time Cameron asked parliament to authorise military action, calling for air strikes against the Syria government last year, he suffered a humiliating defeat as MPs voted it down.
Comments
Comments are closed.